Michael Winship: New York is tough enough for terrorist trials

Friday

Nov 20, 2009 at 12:01 AMNov 20, 2009 at 7:22 PM

Politicians who should know better are speaking out in opposition to a federal trial in Manhattan.

Michael Winship

In the weeks after 9/11, my favorite sign was the one that appeared in the windows of Italian-American neighborhoods near where I live in downtown Manhattan. In bright red, white and blue, it read: “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You got a problem with that?”

So imagine how pleased many of us were when told by conservatives — most of them from out-of-town — that we should be very afraid that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and some of his Al Qaeda henchmen will be put on trial here in New York City, just blocks from the scene of their horrific crime, the World Trade Center.

The response of Arizona Republican Congressman John Shadegg was especially offensive. After noting that Mayor Mike Bloomberg had said that New Yorkers are tough and could handle the trial and its attendant commotion, Rep. Shadegg declared on the floor of the House, “Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it’s your daughter that’s kidnapped at school by a terrorist?”

Rep. Shadegg wound up apologizing, although he insisted the point survived his insensitivity — “I think it is important to note that this decision involves potential risk to innocent people,” he said.

Two local politicians who should know better also spoke out in opposition to a federal trial here in Manhattan, but to a large degree their motives can be perceived as mercenary. Both men are or may be running for statewide office.

Former Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who became such a hero in New York on 9/11, and who has been bandied about the media as a potential candidate for governor or the U.S. Senate, fell into conservative lockstep and told CBS News, “There is no reason to try them in a civilian court. Others are going to be tried in the military tribunal. And the reality is we’ve never done this before.”

Which is odd, because back in 2006, when a civilian jury sentenced 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui to life without parole, Giuliani told Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that while he would have preferred the death penalty, the verdict “does show that we have a legal system, that we follow it, that we respect it. … It does say something pretty remarkable about us, doesn‘t it?”

What’s more, when blind sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahmanm, the architect of the first Trade Center bombing in 1993, was convicted in New York federal court, Giuliani said, “It does demonstrate that we can give people a fair trial, that we are exactly what we say we are. We are a nation of law.”

More baffling was New York’s Democratic Gov. David Paterson, who told The New York Times, “This is not a decision I would have made. … We still have been unable to rebuild that site, and having those terrorists tried so close to the attack is going to be an encumbrance on all New Yorkers.” But the governor’s popularity is so low and election chances next year so slim he is desperate for the slightest grit of traction.

Paterson’s position also seemed to puzzle U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder — a New Yorker, by the way — who last week announced the decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow conspirator here in the city. When told of Paterson’s comments, he said to the New York Daily News, “It’s a little inconsistent with what he told me last week.”

Attorney General Holder, in this instance at least, has been the consistent one, unwavering over the rightness of his decision while admitting that it was a “tough call, and reasonable people can disagree with my conclusion.”

On Wednesday, he handled four hours of often harshly critical questioning from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He countered the opposition’s main objections. “We know that we can prosecute terrorists in our federal courts safely and securely because we have been doing it for years,” Holder said.

As for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his track record of rabid histrionics, Holder said that the terrorist “will have no more of a platform to spew his hateful ideology in federal court than he would have in military commissions. …

“I have every confidence the nation and the world will see him for the coward he is. I’m not scared of what KSM will have to say at trial — and no one else needs to be either.”

Which seems right to me and my friends who stood on our neighborhood streets and watched those towers burn and fall. You got a problem with that?

Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program "Bill Moyers Journal," which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.

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